Boston Trip Part 5: The Biggest Dig

The big story from Monday was the drive I made from Elaine and Brad's in Boston to my uncle's house in Manhattan. The highlight of that leg of the trip was definitely my journey through the Big Dig in Boston. The Boston Central Artery/Tunnel Project, as it's properly known, is the largest and most expensive transportation construction project ever undertaken in the United States, costing over $14 billion - and that's before we account for interest from the construction financing (another $8bn) - for a 3.5 mile tunnel through downtown, an awesome cable-stayed bridge, a 1.6 mile tunnel under the river, and a whole lot of highway ramps.

Boston was originally served by a six-lane elevated roadway called the Central Artery, which served the purpose of adding freeway capacity without disturbing the surface roadways just fine for decades. Unfortunately, given its proximity to buildings while traveling through downtown, there simply wasn't any room to expand to handle additional traffic. Plus, it was dirty, noisy, and generally a drag on the downtown environment, so it was decided that they should just put the whole thing underground in a project that came to be known as The Big Dig.

It took 17 years and three times the original cost estimate, but they got it done. Even though they only added one lane in each direction, the added highway ramps and untangling of the east-west through route has really done a lot to tame congestion. Before the project, there would often be standstill traffic on the Central Artery all day long, whereas now delays are restricted to a more typical rush hour scenario.

And all it took was $136.6 million per lane-mile of roadway. Yes, that is quite a lot - by contrast, your average interstate through an urban area costs somewhere on the order of $2.5 million to $7 million per lane. Ouch. But hey, now instead of that green steel-and-concrete monstrosity, there's a fantastic (if narrow) park running through downtown, complete with gathering and performing arts spaces.

Anyway, the final product certainly is a sight to behold, as you can see in yet another update from the road:

After leaving Boston, the weather took a bit of a sour turn, especially in contrast with the fantastic weekend weather. Even though most still bodies of water were still covered in ice, it had been clear, sunny, and relatively warm over the last couple of days.

There were also many frozen ponds and a smattering of winter weather along the way.

But in spite of some funky weather, I still made it to the border with New York, and that's where we'll pick up in Part 6: Escape to New York, in which I visit Queens and Brooklyn on my way into Manhattan.

                                                                                 

A lot of people have been asking about the setup I use to do the in-car videos. Well, since I don't have fancy suction cup mounts like they do on legit car shows, I have to make do with what I have. Fortunately, with a small amount of time and a bit of equipment it really doesn't take that much to position a camera at a specific location and direction in space. So I borrowed a working tripod and found a piece of wood, and with a little bit of duct tape I was in business. This probably won't reflect well on my sanity, but I even named the two camera positions:

In the front is George, named for George Frideric

HANDEL. He's on a tripod taped to the floor.

And Malcolm is in the back seat, named for

Malcom McDOWELL. You can probably guess

what he's attached to.